syncing - multiple Mac's

[prolix21]

i'm not really sure this would work, and there may not be a 100% answer until someone hooks an iPhone up, but i figured i'd ask anyway

i've got two macs. my macbook pro, which has all my contacts, calendars on, and then my mac pro which is where all my music,etc sits.

do you think i could setup the iPhone to sync my contacts/calendar only when plugged in my macbook pro and only sync music from my mac pro?

i know how ipods behave on two macs (basically, they don't), but being there are a # of difference sync items, i'm wondering if i could have it setup to sync certain things on certain macs

worst case i'll just have to keep a copy of all my calendar and contacts on the mac pro as well

 

[prolix21]

well, got my iPhone last night and finally finished activation last night while i was asleep.

i've tested out my multi-mac sync and it does in fact work!

i've got it setup on both my mac pro and macbook pro.

syncing contacts/calendar/iphoto from the macbook pro

syncing music only from the mac pro

seems to respect the other data when you are only syncing certain things. will do some more testing, but so far so good! this will make my life a lot easier

 

[art]

i've tested out my multi-mac sync and it does in fact work!

i've got it setup on both my mac pro and macbook pro.

syncing contacts/calendar/iphoto from the macbook pro

syncing music only from the mac pro

seems to respect the other data when you are only syncing certain things. will do some more testing, but so far so good! this will make my life a lot easier

How do you do this?

 

[prolix21]

How do you do this?

inside of iTunes you can go to the various tabs and check/uncheck whaty ou want syncd and what you don't want. i just went through and did that. as long as the checked items don't conflict (ie: you can't check music on both systems), it will be fine and respect whatever data is already there

 

[jimmages]

inside of iTunes you can go to the various tabs and check/uncheck whaty ou want syncd and what you don't want. i just went through and did that. as long as the checked items don't conflict (ie: you can't check music on both systems), it will be fine and respect whatever data is already there

But I can't even make iTunes see the iPhone when plugging in

 

[prolix21]

But I can't even make iTunes see the iPhone when plugging in

if your system won't even see the iPhone, it sounds like a more serious issue. this thread is about syncing between multiple machines. if you can't get your pc/mac to see the phone at all, you may want to talk to Apple support

 

[jimmages]

if your system won't even see the iPhone, it sounds like a more serious issue. this thread is about syncing between multiple machines. if you can't get your pc/mac to see the phone at all, you may want to talk to Apple support

Ooops. Forgot to load the latest version of iTunes. Now it's syncing like a muthuh.

Thanks.

 

[hutchensgd]

DO you have the correct version of I Tunes on both machines?

if your system won't even see the iPhone, it sounds like a more serious issue. this thread is about syncing between multiple machines. if you can't get your pc/mac to see the phone at all, you may want to talk to Apple support

 

[gooch]

inside of iTunes you can go to the various tabs and check/uncheck whaty ou want syncd and what you don't want. i just went through and did that. as long as the checked items don't conflict (ie: you can't check music on both systems), it will be fine and respect whatever data is already there

Ok this didn't work for me at all. I have a MBP and an iMac. I synced with the MBP first music, video, photos. Then I synced to the iMac and contacts, calendar, mail. It quickly laid waste to my music, videos and photos. I have contacts now, but nothing else.

I really hope Apple addresses the multiple machine issue.

 

[gooch]

well, got my iPhone last night and finally finished activation last night while i was asleep.

i've tested out my multi-mac sync and it does in fact work!

i've got it setup on both my mac pro and macbook pro.

syncing contacts/calendar/iphoto from the macbook pro

syncing music only from the mac pro

seems to respect the other data when you are only syncing certain things. will do some more testing, but so far so good! this will make my life a lot easier

Go back to your contacts/calendar mac now and resync -- see if it deletes all of your media.

 

[prolix21]

i've been running the config for the past week with no issues. sync'd from both mac's multiple times and have had no issue. calendars/contacts/iphoto from macbook pro, videos and music from my mac pro. works fine

 

[gooch]

i've been running the config for the past week with no issues. sync'd from both mac's multiple times and have had no issue. calendars/contacts/iphoto from macbook pro, videos and music from my mac pro. works fine

Ugh this is so frustrating for me. I have all of my calendar and contacts at work and my media (music and vids) at home. I have tried this several times and it has failed in every way.

I unchecked the contacts, calendar at home then came to the office. Made sure the music and video tabs were unchecked. (interesting enough when I unselected them - it warned me it would delete all of my music and videos in unselected.) I synced -- music deleted.

So I said well maybe I'm not supposed to uncheck the music and video boxes but make sure no playlists or movies are picked. I tried that -- music deleted.

Hmmm? Well maybe I'm not supposed to uncheck or check anything. Possibly the Mac just figures it is a different machine -- music deleted.

I would rather take a sharp stick to the eye. It would be less painful. I never figured myself an idiot, but possibly I'm wrong. I just can't seem to make this work on my own.

 

[gooch]

Went to the Apple store today. The genius said the phone is not designed to sync to 2 machines. In fact Apple does not recommend it as it could lead to corrupt unusable files on all 3 devices.

 

[prolix21]

Went to the Apple store today. The genius said the phone is not designed to sync to 2 machines. In fact Apple does not recommend it as it could lead to corrupt unusable files on all 3 devices.

not sure what to tell you, b/c its working perfectly fine for me... and i'm not sure why it would corrupt data, b/c i'm not syncing the same data from 2 pc's. i could see if you tried to sync data from 2 sources, but all i'm doing is syncing from 1 computer for each data type (music, calendar, etc)

here's a more detailed rundown of my config:
macbook pro:
summary tab- 'automatically sync' checked, 'only sync' unchecked
info tab- 'address book checked, 'ical' checked,
music tab- nothing checked
photos tab- syncing all iphotos
podcasts- nothing
video- nothing

mac pro:
summary tab- 'automatically sync' checked, 'only sync' unchecked
info tab- nothing checked
music tab- syncing my playlist
photos tab- nothing
podcasts- nothing
video- syncing 1 movie

as you can see, all my data is pretty much isolated from ever conflicting with the other computer. i set it up like this the day i bought it. first setup my macbook pro, did a sync, then wandered over to my mac pro and synced the music

 

[Martlet]

You may want to check out SyncTogether, it should let you sync up the laptop mac with the desktop (for all but music if I recall correctly).

Obviously not a solution in all cases, but if you have 2+ macs in use you control, it may be helpful for more than just iPhone syncing.

 

[spacerog]

FYI: This works on MAC-PC as well as MAC-MAC. I have all of my music on a Windows PC and everything else on my Mac. I just check off which machine gets to sync what in iTunes and it works just fine.

- SR

 

[bgray]

Do you need to acitvate and sync from the PC first?

Is it necessary to activate and sync on a PC first if you wish to sync to mac for your music and a PC for your contacts and calendar? We are planning on iPhones for the entire office (4 employees) and we use an Exchange Server. We understand the limits of IMAP and all OK with syncing at work for our calendar and contacts on our PC's. However we all have Macs at home and would like to sync music, videos and pics on these macs.

Thanks